Armenian Opposition Calls on Supporters to Take Part in Sunday Protest Against Pashinyan in Yerevan

YEREVAN (Sputnik) - The Armenian opposition is calling on supporters to joing a decisive Sunday protest to demand resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, the Armenia Alliance parliamentary group said on Friday.

The opposition has been organising protests across the country since Monday over the government's policy, which they consider detrimental to Armenia and the breakaway republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. Columns of opposition supporters from the cities of Ijevan and Tigranashen are currently marching toward Yerevan, expecting to arrive on Sunday.

"The first of May, at 16:00 [12:00 GMT] at the France Square, the final stage of the fight. Resist," Armenia Alliance said on Telegram, enumerating the basic demands, such as keeping the Nagorno-Karabakh region Armenian, preservation of statehood, support of peace and strengthening of borders.

The protests were sparked by the population's discontent with Prime Minister Pashinyan's decision to hold peace talks with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, and start the normalization process with Turkey. Ties between Turkey and Armenia remain fraught over Ankara's military support for regional rival Azerbaijan and a history of denying the 1915 Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire.

The decades-long conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia escalated in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 and left thousands of casualties on both sides. A trilateral ceasefire declaration was mediated by Russia in November of that year and the sides agreed to a deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the region. This caused a political crisis in Armenia, where many view the ceasefire as a defeat in the prolonged conflict and put the blame on Pashinyan.